Located about 30 miles west of Hot Springs, the community is nestled in a bend of the Caddo River in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains. Its origins can be traced to a number of large commercial ventures that began in the 1900’s. One was the building of the Gurdon and Fort Smith Railroad (G&FTS) along the Caddo through the northeastern corner of the county.
Construction on the rail line began in 1905. In its wake, a number of new communities, most destined to be the location of large lumber mills, sprang up. Glenwood was among these.
In 1907, the Caddo River Lumber Company built a large mill at a site named Rosboro. Soon, a second and third company moved into the area near a newly opened railroad depot in the town.
With these new mills under construction and the railroad in full operation, two local businessmen, Curt Hays and Will Fagan, laid out a new town site on both sides of the depot. The business lots sold quickly, and a boomtown grew almost overnight. Glenwood, reflecting the beautiful location of the new community, was chosen for a name. By July, the new village, with a population at around 250, had obtained a post office which quickly replaced the old office at Rock Creek. In April of the next year, at the request of a number of local citizens, Glenwood became an incorporated town. By 1910, its population stood at 768.
The town received an additional economic boost four years later when the Memphis, Dallas, and Gulf Railroad (MD&G) opened new tracks between Glenwood and Hot Springs, making the town a major rail junction and one of the centers of the lumber industry in the southern Ouachita Mountains.
Two years later, the community included several churches, a number of new businesses, and a telephone system.
While Hays and Fagan were busy developing Glenwood proper, the A. L. Clark Lumber Company was building its own residential “town,” near its mill. It consisted of an area of large white frame houses for mill supervisors and office employees. In the 1920s, Glenwood’s population continued to grow. Its importance as a transportation hub and a growing regional trade center was enhanced when what is now U.S. 70 was paved between Glenwood and Hot Springs and large tracts of land around the town were converted to peach orchards.
The 1930s brought the Great Depression and hard times to Glenwood. With it came a disaster that nearly destroyed the town itself. In 1922, the Caddo River Lumber Company purchased the A. L. Clark Company mill at Glenwood and expanded it. Within a few years, the new facility was humming with activity. On a stormy night in June 1936, a lighting strike started a blaze that consumed most of the mill complex. Though the mill remained open for another eighteen months, the company did not consider rebuilding. Within a short while, it relocated its entire operation to Oregon and took many of the community’s leading families with it. Glenwood survived because of a number of more modest lumber operations that sprang up in the wake of the destruction of the big mill. However, the town’s population declined.
In 1940, the Arkansas Slate Manufacturing Company built a large mill north of town to produce roofing granules. In 1942, a new manganese processing plant was opened west of town. At the same time, a worldwide shortage of mercury caused by World War II led to extensive mining of that mineral in the area. These mills and their work force gave a much-needed boost to the local economy.
The 1970s witnessed an influx of industrial growth and during this period the Curt Bean Lumber Company, one of the nation’s largest independently owned lumber producers, located its lumber mill in town. During the 1990s, the Caddo River became one of the most popular canoeing streams in western Arkansas. In 1994, the Glenwood Country Club’s golf course, host to the annual Dick Kelly Golf Classics, named for President Bill Clinton’s stepfather, was opened. Today, the population of the city stands at around 2,000.
Courtesy of Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture